Times 2 - UK (2020-09-11)

the times | Friday September 11 2020 1GT 5

cover story

John Lennon at home

with his first wife,

Cynthia, and their son,

Julian, in 1964. Above

right, from top: Lennon

and his second wife,

Yoko Ono, at the Hilton

hotel in Amsterdam

in 1969; David Bowie,

Ono and Lennon at

the Grammys in 1975

Lennon was less friendly to

others. Frank Allen, the bassist with

the Searchers, performed at the

Star-Club Hamburg alongside the

Beatles in 1963. “I ran into John

coming out of the dressing room

area,” Allen said. “I said how much

I’d enjoyed their show and wished

him every success. John stared at

me intently, in the manner of a

snake sizing up a rodent.’’

“People in the club have been

talking about you,” Lennon told him.

“ ‘I can’t think why,’ he sneered. ‘Your

harmonies are f***ing ridiculous.’ ”

That same year Brian Bennett, the

Shadows drummer, had attended

McCartney’s 21st-birthday party and

seen Lennon attacking Bob Wooler,

landing the Cavern Club DJ in

hospital. Wooler’s crime had been to

tease Lennon good-naturedly about

his recent “honeymoon” in Spain with

the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein.

Lennon injured Wooler so badly that

he might have died. John Reid, Elton

John’s former manager and partner,

later confirmed to me Lennon’s

dalliances with Epstein.

And New York? The real reason why

Lennon moved there in 1971 was not

to escape the press and fans who were

baying for Ono’s blood for “breaking

up the Beatles”, but because Ono’s

daughter had been abducted. Her

ex-husband, Tony Cox, legged it to

Houston with Kyoko, changed her

name to Rosemary and left her with a

blind teenager, Meredith Hamp, whom

he had only just met.

Although Ono was given full

custody and the Coxes were pursued

by the police and the most famous

couple on Earth, Lennon never saw

Kyoko again. Ono wasn’t reunited with

her until 30 years later.

Andy Peebles, the former BBC

Radio 1 presenter, interviewed the

Lennons at the Hit Factory studio in

New York on December 6, 1980, two

days before Lennon died. He was the

last British broadcaster to do so.

Peebles found a rounded, content,

refreshingly feminist Lennon who was

settled in New York, but desperately

homesick for England. Ono, amazed,

declared afterwards that she had been

unaware of most of what Lennon

divulged. She clung to Peebles for

years after Lennon was killed.

Forty years on, during the year he

would have turned 80, the world still

regards Lennon’s death as a pointless

tragedy. Lennon, for all we know,

given the weirdo that he was, may

have considered his murder a fittingly

dramatic end. We can dwell on the

unbearable or we can console

ourselves that he was in a good

place. He had his answers.

It was through drugs, primarily LSD,

that he landed on love. What’s that

got to do with it? Only everything.

The key to his complication is that

he never learnt to love himself. Worse,

he felt unworthy of the love of others.

He punished all who fell for him. He

was condescending and contemptuous.

He sneered at them for blind devotion

and neediness, ignoring the obvious:

that he was the needier. May Pang —

the young assistant who was coerced

by Ono, exhausted by Lennon’s sexual

demands, into sleeping with her

husband — went along with the

scheme, she told me, because she

“simply couldn’t say no to him...

No one could.”

Those closest to him in the early

days knew Lennon as well as anyone

could. Pete Shotton was his lifelong

best friend from the age of six. After

he died in 2017, a previously unaired

interview came to light that heaves

with insight into the boy who never

quite became a man. Shotton revealed

the depths to which Lennon sank

when Mimi, enraged that he had gone

to stay with his mother, had his

beloved dog Sally destroyed.

Klaus Voormann befriended the

Beatles in Hamburg in 1960, created

the cover for their Revolver album,

played with them and remained

Lennon’s pal until the end. For all

Lennon’s showiness and larks,

Voormann lamented to me, he

would never let his friend in.

“Only much later on, when our

friendship had existed for many years,

would he really open up to me. In

Hamburg, however, he said little. I

longed to know him.

“I remember one night we got really

drunk together. We went into a strip

club and got thrown out. It was around

five in the morning. We went to the

fish market and sat on a bench

shivering in the open air. It was a

strangely intimate situation, but still

he could not open up. He really wasn’t

in tune with himself at that time.

“It hurt me to observe John in such

agony. He would get so angry that he

would do things like smash the door

of a cupboard in and rip his precious

leather jacket. He was a good, dear

friend to me, but I couldn’t help him.’’

COVER: TOM BLAU/CAMERA PRESS. BELOW: ROBERT WHITAKER/GETTY IMAGES; MARK AND COLLEEN HAYWARD/GETTY IMAGES

Who Killed John

Lennon? by Lesley-Ann

Jones is published by

John Blake on

September 17

o t S B c a I h m s

“P

What John

Lennon’s

songs reveal

Julia (1968) — from the “White

Album”

“When I cannot sing my heart, I

can only speak my mind.” Does it

get more agonising? John Lennon

wrote this wistful song about his

mother while at the Maharishi

Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Rishikesh,

India. It’s just Lennon and his

acoustic guitar, his only solo effort

on any Beatles song. He stirs Yoko

Ono into the imagery: her first

name means “child of the sea”. He

came to call her “Mother”. We can

and should read all kinds into this.

Every meaningful relationship he

had with a woman beyond Julia

Lennon’s death was mother-

replacement therapy.

God (1970) – from John Lennon/

Plastic Ono Band

The dream is over. Lennon means

the Sixties, and the indulgence in

doctrines and idolatry supposed to

guide us towards meaning. He

lambasts royalty, rock idols,

Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity

and politics. He was the walrus, but

now he’s John. “I just believe in me.

Yoko and me.”

Mother (1970) — from John

Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

Paul McCartney majored in this

theme, with Lady Madonna, Your

band, but did not progress. Later,

Lennon was dreaming of the past, as

he so often was, and look what

emerged. Jealous Guy is an

acknowledgement of his shedding of

chauvinistic attitudes, and of his

enlightenment regarding women.

This was the last song he sang live,

unannounced and unaccompanied,

on an acoustic, in the deserted bar

of a Japanese hotel.

How Do You Sleep? (1971) — from

Imagine

With the Beatles flailing to a

close, the primary songwriting

partnership disintegrating and so

much resentment flying about,

Lennon wrote this in retaliation.

McCartney’s album RAM inflamed

him, featuring some flagrant attacks

on Lennon, particularly in the song

Too Many People. How Do You

Sleep? is a great song, but it goes too

far and hits below the belt. For

example? All these rumours about

McCartney being dead were right,

Lennon claims; he’s just a pretty

face; he surrounds himself with

yes-men; the only song of any

worth he wrote was Yesterday

— a play on words, dismissing

McCartney as a has-been. Lennon

even derides McCartney’s oeuvre as

“Muzak to my ears”. It was shabby

of Lennon to write and record

this embittered sneer. It was

understandable of McCartney to

feel affronted.

Happy Xmas (War is Over) (1971) —

single

The infuriating abbreviation in the

title aside, John and Yoko’s

Christmas standard is a protest song

above all. An anthem to peace,

rendered yuleish. There is

something for everyone: the

Harlem Community Choir and

Children’s Choir, May Pang on

backing vocals, whispered

messages to estranged offspring

Kyoko and Julian, tinkling sleigh

bells, production by Spector.

Lennon’s voice is truly lovely on

this. Ono sings in tune.

Out the Blue (1973) — from

Mind Games

Oh, Yoko. You inspired some

right ballads. This is a sublime

and deceptively simple love song.

An ode to joy. Cranky metaphors

aside, it sweeps through the

genres as if unsure about what

kind of song it is, before

concluding with confidence.

Grow Old With Me (1984) — from

Milk and Honey

There’s all sorts going on here.

Lennon demos a song in Bermuda

based on a poem by Robert

Browning. Back in New York, Ono

happens upon an old poem by

Browning’s tragic wife, Elizabeth

Barrett Browning. Ono pens a song

inspired by it, entitled Let Me Count

the Ways, and a lilt stirs in her

head. Were John and Yoko the

reincarnation of the Brownings?

Er. Their two separate songs might

have made it side by side on to

Double Fantasy, but for a race

against release date. They entwine

instead, to become Grow Old With

Me. Much as their authors did —

or intended to.

Lesley-Ann Jones

a r s H C b m K b L t O M O r a A a g k c

Mother Should Know, Let It Be

(featuring his own mother, Mary),

Mother Nature’s Son, Only Mama

Knows and I Lost My Little Girl.

Lennon’s howler eclipses them all —

even his own Julia. From its opening

death knell to its concluding

screeches, this primal piece is a wail

of rejection and grief. Lennon blasts

both parents. He needed them both,

he acknowledges — but evidently

they didn’t need him. The pain-

racked closer — “Mama don’t go,

Daddy come home” — shows that

he never got over them.

Jealous Guy (1970) — from Imagine

Raw and pain-riven, the song was

also conceived in India, after the

Beatles attended a lecture by the

Maharishi. It began life as Child of

Nature, and was later demo’d by the

Nine-year-old John

Lennon with his

mother, Julia, in 1949